13 October 2019

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Albums and Singles

The downside to releasing a beloved and perfectly distilled EP like The Garden is that there will eventually have to be a follow-up to it and people will expect it to be every bit as good (if not better) than its predecessor. That is an unenviable level of creative pressure to be confronted with, but Carla dal Forno seems to have passed through it with grace and aplomb (and even managed to start her own record label along the way). To her credit, dal Forno was not at all interested in making The Garden II, though her subsequent cover album (Top of the Pops) seems to have provided a rough template, as she has clearly been thinking a lot about what goes into constructing a good and memorable pop song. Having internalized that, she then wrote a bunch of her own. In a broad sense, it is very apparent that dal Forno is heavily influenced by the classic minimalist post-punk/indie pop of Young Marble Giants and AC Marias, but the best songs on Look Up Sharp feel like an inspired update rather than a loving homage, as she strikes a truly elegant balance of pared-to-the-bone starkness, muscular bass riffs, casual sensuousness, and understated experimentation.

Kallista

Both dal Forno's new Kallista imprint and Look Up Sharp made their teasingly brief first appearances earlier this year with the "So Much Better" 7" single.As far as lead singles go, that half-lilting/half-biting break-up song was a solid pick, as it is an appealingly sincere and direct song that nevertheless packs quite a scathing sentiment in its lurching, slow-motion melancholy.While the explicit sentiment is very clearly "I am done with you and I am moving forward," the rest of the album seems to address love and heartache a bit more tenderly, sensually, and poetically, so I suspect "So Much Better" was one of the earliest pieces composed for this album. It would make sense if it was, as some of the other songs on the album elevate dal Forno's constrained palette of bass/drum machine/voice into something so much better than "So Much Better."In fact, barring a few instrumentals, just about every single song on Look Up Sharp could be a strong single.While her impressive knack for crafting tight songs with great hooks has been evident right from the beginning (see "Fast Moving Cars"), dal Forno has gotten much more skilled at weeding out her weaker material over the years.She has also evolved quite a bit from the comparatively bloodless, reverb-swathed murkiness of her ghostly early work.The end result of those two transformations is that the Carla dal Forno of 2019 has a truly impressive hit-to-miss ratio and her best moments make a much deeper impact than the more style-driven fare of You Know What it is Like.She has always had a very cool and distinctive aesthetic, but the songs at the foundation of that aesthetic now feel honest and open in a more meaningful way.

To my ears, there are at least two stone-cold, instant classics lurking among these ten songs.My favorite piece by a landslide is "Don't Follow Me," which is built from a lovely, multitracked vocal motif that feels almost like a choral hymnal.From there, it ingeniously blossoms into a lazily smoldering groove of corroded bass tones, a spartan kick/snare pattern, chiming chord stabs, and a shifting nimbus of lysergic swells and melody fragments.It is probably the most beautiful song on the album, but it also benefits greatly from the ramshackle, blackened accompaniment that relentlessly stomps forward beneath the floating, heavenly vocals.The contrast between those two poles is absolutely perfect, as dal Forno evokes angelic beauty in a ragged and ruined landscape (and then brings it all to a close with actual fireworks).The other highlight is "Took A Long Time," which skillfully combines a meaty descending bass line, a clattering drum machine shuffle, and great vocal hook, then gradually warms and fills with color as synth tones languorously undulate in the periphery.There is also second tier of songs that are nearly as great, such as the opening "No Trace," which augments a heavy, rolling groove with streaking, spaced-out splashes of synth color.Elsewhere, "I'm Conscious" unfolds as a wonderfully shambling meditation on longing and regret.Also, I would be remiss if I did not mention that the album's instrumentals are quite likable as well, even if they are mostly palette-cleansers to bridge the more fully formed pieces.I especially like "Hype Sleep," which marries a warm, ringing bass melody to a tinny, vaguely Latin drum machine groove.I actually wish dal Forno had explored that direction a bit more, as understatedly playful drum machine beats are an excellent counterbalance to her more introspective, hypnagogic side.

I also enjoyed the dreamily lush and melodic "Leaving For Japan," which is a side of dal Forno's art that I rarely get to encounter.To some degree, I would be absolutely delighted if she eased up her constrained aesthetic to allow for more pieces in that vein, but I suspect she is reluctant to record many songs that she cannot perform live with just a bass.Aside from that practical consideration, the extremely minimal instrumentation of dal Forno's work is admittedly an extremely effective approach artistically.There are a lot of ways to craft a great song, but dal Forno consistently challenges herself to do it in the hardest way possible at this point in her career: writing hooks and melodies strong enough to carry a piece even if all of the accompanying music, production touches, and arrangement flourishes were completely stripped away.That is what I admire most about Carla dal Forno's work.She is an excellent songwriter and has lots of creative ideas for fleshing out her simple, bass-driven pieces, but the larger achievement is that she is just a woman with a bass who is very intent on making a direct and undiluted human connection with listeners.I suppose such a fearless and assured avoidance to artistic distance and artifice would not matter much if Look Up Sharp did not also have great songs, but it has those too, which is why exactly Carla dal Forno remains one of the most compelling and vital songwriters in underground music.

Samples can be found here.

13 October 2019

Administrator

Albums and Singles

No one can predict which trends or innovations will shape or define the experimental music of the future, but Emptyset's latest bombshell certainly feels like a gloriously bracing vision of one possible path: Blossoms is an album "generated entirely from the output of a neural network-based artificial intelligence system." While the duo of James Ginzburg and Paul Purgas has always been extremely forward-thinking and experimentally minded, this is the first Emptyset album where it seems like the pair has actually leapt several years ahead of everyone else rather than merely taking existing ideas to unexpected (and sometimes fascinating) extremes. That said, Blossoms is also a culmination of the same themes that have obsessed Emptyset for years, as the source material comes from recent acoustic improvisations with materials like wood and metal as well as their backlog of more architecturally inspired recordings (though it all ultimately emerges in radically unrecognizable form). At its best, Blossoms sounds like little else that I have ever heard, evoking a kind of visceral, shape-shifting sci-fi nightmare.

Thrill Jockey

Imagine, if you will, a world in which the Transformers are not a ham-fisted and painfully stupid big-budget movie franchise but are instead both very real and very terrifying.And that, rather than morphing into childish nonsense like boomboxes or trucks, they instead transform into amorphous and phantasmagoric Lovecraftian horrors made from liquid mercury.On pieces like the grinding and churning "Bloom," Blossoms evokes exactly what I would expect such a half-organic/half-mechanized abomination to sound like.Then it goes one step further and seems to also warp and stretch both time and the fabric of reality.Needless to say, that is quite an impressive feat indeed, though it is not one that the artificial intelligence system can claim full credit for: the way the sounds unfold and interact is indeed gloriously radical and inhuman, but the seismic, world-shaking power is entirely due to the sound design wizardry of Ginzburg and Purgas.The importance of the latter cannot be understated, as composing an album in such a fashion has some significant limitations (much like those of chromatic, atonal, or noise music).Blossoms is an album that demands to be played loudly, as the sheer shuddering, explosive power makes the lack of conventional melodies, harmonies, or compositional arcs feel largely irrelevant.There are occasionally some moments where this album achieves a kind of alien beauty as well, but the more pervasive achievement is that it resembles some kind of massive metal organism in a constant state of awe-inspiring structural transformation.

That said, Emptyset's AI is far from a one-trick pony–it just happens to be exceptionally gifted at executing dazzling textural and dynamic feats, so those are the ones that initially stand out the most.In the opening "Petal," for example, the grinding and squirming cybernetic onslaught provides a framework for a fluttering melodic fragment at the piece’s heart.The weirdly lovely "Pollen" returns to that same theme with even greater success, as its lilting and wilting snatch of melody feels simultaneously tender and encased in a prickly exoskeleton.The other highlights head in significantly divergent paths though.For example, "Blade" feels like a warm and quietly lovely drone piece adrift on heavy swells of buzzing metallic shimmer, while "Axil" eschews any warmth at all to converge into a lurching and shuffling groove that unpredictably collapses and reforms as it moves relentlessly forward.My favorite piece, however, is probably "Stem," which slowly takes shape from deep subterranean throbs, then unexpectedly erupts into something that resembles a hallucinatory and time-stretched dance party for immense, wounded machines.

The closing "Clone" is a noteworthy piece as well, simultaneously illustrating both Blossoms' violent, unpredictable appeal and the one weakness that keeps Emptyset from quite becoming one of my favorite projects.The piece begins as a pulsing organ-like chord that gets ingeniously stretched, distended, and deconstructed for a brief and wonderful passage, yet everything is quickly consumed by a massive cosmic buzz saw that grinds and obliterates all other sound.It has such a promising start, but it is summarily destroyed rather than being allowed to evolve into something more.That has always been the rub for Emptyset: great ideas are regularly executed with brutal force and clarity, but their aesthetic begins and ends there.There are generally not "songs" or satisfying compositional arcs on Emptyset albums, just cool experimental vamps that appear and simply run their course for a few minutes before making way for the next piece.Admittedly, much of that is due to conceptual- or gear-related constraints, but that does not make it any less of a real and valid issue.Fortunately, Purgas and Ginzburg have found an ingenious way to transcend that shortcoming on Blossoms: just ratchet up the wonder and the elemental power until everything else is eclipsed.It feels weird to describe a solution that involved eighteen months of work with "an international network of programmers working at the cutting edge of sound synthesis" as a blunt solution to a complex problem, but the intricacy of the process ultimately resulted in a legitimately volcanic outcome.And a legitimately effective one.Blossoms is unquestionably a significant and bold leap forward in sound art, but it is equally remarkable in how it transforms the meticulous and the cerebral into something downright apocalyptic.

Samples can be found here.

13 October 2019

Administrator

Albums and Singles

This has been an unusually eclectic and prolific year for Abul Mogard, as he has followed up his first ever remix album (And We Are Passing Through Silently) with his first ever soundtrack album in the form of Kimberlin. On paper, the transition from Mogard’s usual fare into soundtrack territory makes a lot more intuitive sense than turning him loose on deconstructing Äisha Devi jams, but his innovation in bridging that stylistic gulf was a large part of why Passing was such an absolute left-field delight. The pleasures of Kimberlin are arguably bit more modest by comparison, as it falls into more expected aesthetic terrain and feels more like an EP than a full-length (by Mogard standards, anyway). In terms of quality, however, it does not fall at all short of his usual level of sublime mastery, culminating in a final slow-burning epic that can hold its own against any of his previous work.

Ecstatic

Abul Mogard does not seem like an artist who embarks upon any project lightly, nor does he seem like someone who would feel comfortable releasing (or associating himself with) middling or uninspired material.Consequently, it is not surprising at all that his first film-related project is quite an intriguing one.Kimberlin is a 24-minute experimental film by Duncan Whitley set on the English isle of Portland.In the local dialect, "kimberlin" is term for an outsider or stranger living on the island and Whitley notes that the film was made in the wake of the UK's decision to leave the European Union, so the idea of "the other" is presumably a guiding theme.Lamentably, I have not seen the film (it debuted at Café Oto last month), but I suspect it delves into something considerably more fascinating and mysterious than mere provincial xenophobia, as Whitley was drawn to the island by the discovery of "an underground cinema cavern" and the canisters of super 8 film inside it.Naturally, a central focus of the film is speculation about who could have been behind such a curious and secretive endeavor, but the tone of the soundtrack is largely a bleakly beautiful one that seems inspired by the island itself.The music has a haunted and majestic feel that evokes a desolate, rocky, and windswept landscape that harbors disturbing secrets: if the unearthed canisters had turned out to be full of ghosts rather than film, Mogard would not have needed to change his score much at all.

The slowly swelling opener "Flooding Tide" feels like a return to some of Mogard's earlier work, as it unfolds as a brooding, murky, and roiling dronescape that seems to rumble up from beneath the earth.Or, based on its title, like a heavy tide rolling in to envelop a secluded path on a lonely coast.It does a fine job of setting the mood for the album (and presumably the film as well), but the three pieces that follow are the true heart of Kimberlin.The most immediately striking piece is the eerily beautiful "I Watched The See The Fields The Sky," which unfolds as a lazily seesawing melodic figure that feels mournful, mysterious, and corroded and leaves spectral, smoldering trails in its wake. The remaining two pieces are not quite as overtly melodic, but they maintain the same feeling of smoldering and undulating in slow-motion, like a bleary red sunrise slowly burning through a thick fog.

What they lack in melody, they more than make up for in elegantly controlled and simmering tension, as Mogard allows his swaying, throbbing, and frayed drones to organically unfold and steadily accumulate impressive depth and power.The 17-minute "Playing On The Stones" is especially mesmerizing and is probably the most perfect summation of Mogard's unique genius that I have heard to date.That does not necessarily mean that it is strongest piece that he has ever recorded (it is not, as competition is fierce).However, it is exactly the kind of piece that only he could have composed, as it displays a control, patience, and lightness of touch that verges on the supernatural.At its core, it is essentially just a single chord that lazily twists, quavers, and undergoes subtle textural transformations, yet it is nevertheless heavy as hell and so absorbing in its subtle dynamic evolution that I would happily allow it to continue increasing in power until my entire house shook and plaster rained from my ceiling.

It is no secret that I almost invariably find soundtrack albums to be exasperating and underwhelming regardless of how much I love the artist responsible, but I am delighted to report that Kimberlin has managed to transcend its intended purpose so seamlessly that all of my usual soundtrack caveats do not apply.In fact, I never would have guessed that Kimberlin even was a soundtrack if it had not been billed as such: it feels like a complete and fully formed work that stands on its own.Admittedly, a large part of that success is probably due to both Mogard's usual aesthetic and the fact that Whitley's film is an experimental/art film rather than a narrative one (which would have required drama and a wider palette of moods), but plenty of art films have forgettable soundtracks too.This one does not.The only real difference between Kimberlin and A Characteristically Great New Abul Mogard Album is essentially just the duration.The album is actually longer than the film it scores, yet it still ends too soon to feel like an entirely satisfying meal (though that probably could have been remedied by simply expanding "I Watched The Sea" to three times its current length).Given that, I would probably rank Kimberlin with the Maurizio Bianchi split as "not quite among the most crucial Mogard releases, yet disproportionately wonderful for an ostensibly minor release."Everything that I love about Abul Mogard's work is here, even if there is slightly less of it than I would have deemed optimal.No one can wring aching beauty and deep emotion from quiet simplicity like Mogard can and Kimberlin emphatically reaffirms that.

Samples can be found here.

05 October 2019

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Over the past decade, the visionary musician Arthur Russell has entered something close to the mainstream.

Sampled and referenced by contemporary musicians, his papers now open to visitors at the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center in New York, and his name synonymous with a certain strain of tenderness, Russell is as widely known as he's ever been. Thanks to Russell's partner Tom Lee and to Steve Knutson of Audika Records, who have forged several records from Russell's vast archive of unfinished and unreleased work, the world now hears many versions of Arthur Russell.  There's the Iowa boy, the disco mystic, the singer-songwriter and composer, and the fierce perfectionist deep in a world of echo. While all of these elements of Russell are individually true, none alone define him.

Now, after ten years of work inside the Russell library, Lee and Knutson bring us Iowa Dream, yet another bright star in Russell's dazzling constellation.  Blazing with trademark feeling, these nineteen songs are a staggering collection of Russell's utterly distinct songwriting. And although Russell could be inscrutably single-minded, he was never totally solitary. Collaborating here is a stacked roster of downtown New York musicians, including Ernie Brooks, Rhys Chatham, Henry Flynt, Jon Gibson, Peter Gordon, Steven Hall, Jackson Mac Low, Larry Saltzman, and David Van Tieghem.  Musician Peter Broderick makes a contemporary addition to this list: more than forty years after Russell recorded several nearly finished songs, Broderick worked diligently with Audika to complete them, and performed audio restoration and additional mixing.

Several tracks on Iowa Dream were originally recorded as demos, in two early examples of Russell's repeated brushes with potential popular success—first in 1974, with Paul Nelson of Mercury Records, and then in 1975, with the legendary John Hammond of Columbia Records.  For different reasons, neither session amounted to a record deal.  Russell kept working nearly up until his death in 1992 from complications of HIV-AIDS.

At once kaleidoscopic and intimate, Iowa Dream bears some of Russell's most personal work, including several recently discovered folk songs he wrote during his time in Northern California in the early 1970s.  For Russell, Iowa was never very far away. "I see, I see it all," sings Russell on the title track: red houses, fields, the town mayor (his father) streaming by as he dream-bicycles through his hometown.  Russell's childhood home and family echo, too, through "Just Regular People," "I Wish I Had a Brother," "Wonder Boy," "The Dogs Outside are Barking," "Sharper Eyes," and "I Felt."  Meanwhile, songs like "I Kissed the Girl From Outer Space," "I Still Love You," "List of Boys," and "Barefoot in New York" fizz with pop and dance grooves, gesturing at Russell's devotion to New York's avant-garde and disco scenes.  Finally, the long-awaited "You Did it Yourself," until now heard only in a brief heart-stopping black-and-white clip in Matt Wolf's documentary Wild Combination, awards us a new take with a driving funk rhythm and Russell's extraordinary voice soaring at the height of its powers.  On Iowa Dream, you can hear a country kid meeting the rest of the world—and with this record, the world continues to meet a totally singular artist.

More information can be found here.

05 October 2019

Administrator

Albums and Singles

"Circaea, the latest collaborative project involving prolific British musician Andrew Chalk (Ora, Mirror, Isolde...) debuts with The Bridge of Dreams.  Alongside Chalk in this new adventure, we find young cellist Ecka Rose Mordecai and classically trained guitarist Tom James Scott, also founder of the Skire label.  The twelve delicate miniatures that make up this album find protection in the caring arms of Faraway Press - Chalk's own label - and are a work of pure beauty."

-via SoundOhm

More information can be found here.

05 October 2019

Administrator

Albums and Singles

"Marsfield is a collaborative project that involves British musicians Andrew Chalk (Ora, Mirror, Isolde...), Robin Barnes and Vikki Jackman along with Australian ambient practitioner Brendan Walls.  Following Three Sunsets Over Marsfield and The Towering Sky - both released on Faraway Press in 2010, The Innocents is the group's third full-length release and includes two long mesmerizing compositions."

-via SoundOhm

More information can be found here.

05 October 2019

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Albums and Singles

The Heavy Steps Of Dreaming is the brilliant debut album from Vancouver-based Minor Pieces, a new songwriting partnership comprising acclaimed singer/composer Ian William Craig and newcomer Missy Donaldson, a singer and multi-instrumentalist. Retaining some of the textural play and experimentation of Ian's solo material whilst channeling it squarely within the domain of tangible songwriting, the pair utilize guitar, modified tape decks, bass and synths to fashion deeply-felt songs with their beautifully matched male/ female vocals standing resolutely center stage.  Taking influence and inspiration from the likes of Low, Grouper, Mazzy Star, Portishead, My Bloody Valentine, Talk Talk and Cat Power, The Heavy Steps Of Dreaming sounds at once familiar whilst forging something new, unique and beyond the sum of its influences.

More information can be found here.

05 October 2019

Administrator

Albums and Singles

With over two decades of formal exploration and exhilarating abstraction Get On is, somewhat surprisingly, only the fourth solo Pita full length. Peter Rehberg has always been vouched for pushing the very limits of the technology du jour, be it software or in recent years a complex modular set.  Rehberg's motives are one of unbridled exploration often resulting in extreme and exhilarating audio works.

Having spearheaded the contemporary electronic sound with his uncompromising explorations of noise, rhythm and extreme computer music, he has also worked with numerous experimental musicians in collaboration.  Rehberg stands in the wake of a sonic revolution, once fringe, which transformed over time into the sound of a generation of experimental geeks and club freaks worldwide.

Get On follows on from the 2016 release Get In. As with other titles in his "Get" series, we have an unwieldy blend of noise, abstraction, gnarled rhythm and blurred melody.  Both analogue and digital tools are deployed as a means of expressing something outside of everyday electronics. "AMFM" launches proceedings with some delightfully disorientating ricocheting electronics setting off a subversive sonic spectrum. "Frozen Jumper" presents some ugly skittering electronics which rotate into exquisitely mangled forms before launching into an unsettling euphoria.  The last piece "Motivation" is a towering sensitive work, simultaneously haunted and emotionally moving.  Get On marks another monumental work in the ongoing evolution from one of the ground zero pioneers of contemporary radical electronic music.  As uncompromising as ever this is Pita in his prime. Emotion rung from the most twisted of frames.

More information can be found here.

05 October 2019

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Albums and Singles

Old Castle are a trio consisting of Robin Storey (Rapoon, Zoviet France), Robert Pepper (Pas Musique), and Shaun Sandor (Promute).  The three met in 2011 when they performed in Brooklyn at Cafe Orwell.  They have been collaborators ever since. They have released several albums comprised of duos (Ultramail Productions, Alrealon Musique, Zoharum) but this is the first time they conspired as a trio to make 13 tracks of industrial, experimental, electronic, mind-bending compositions.

More information can be found here.

05 October 2019

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Subtly changing overtone layers and fragil polyrhythms based on the Ventorgano, a self-developed electroacoustic synthesizer.

The Ventorgano consists of guitar strings, wooden resonating bodies and converted fans which use cello-bow hair instead of propellers to set the strings into oscillation.  Rotating speed, string tension and attack can be adjusted progressively, allowing the player to control micro-rhythmical elements and subtle changes in the overtone spectrum.

As in Trobollowitsch's previous works, the production process of the Ventorgano is based on improvisations to be used as basic materials. The two pieces, as heard in the album, were developed by a later processor selecting, combining and cutting these basic materials, always by maintaining the nature of the instrument and focusing on the gradations in-between rhythm and drone.

More information can be found here.